What is ICQ and Jabber?

Of course, AOL does not want you to use any other client: that's why the original client for the ICQ network is Adware. They want to make money, which is okay, I suppose. However, it's essential to consider this: ICQ is owned by AOL. This makes life easier because you can still maintain your ICQ account, as I do, for instance, since there are some people who refuse to use anything but ICQ.

If you're not yet using a multiprotocol messenger, you should consider using one. Chances are, you already use a multiprotocol messenger like Trillian Pro or Miranda for Windows, Pidgin or Kopete for Linux/Unix, Adium or iChat for MacOS X. But why would you want to use another protocol? Because you will need it eventually.

Wikipedia is here to help! My short suggestion is to use Pidgin (for Windows, Linux, and BSD) or Adium (for MacOS X).

Let me try to convince you to create a Jabber account. Game theory shows us that 'superior product' does not imply 'market dominance.' Jabber/XMPP is clearly superior to ICQ for many reasons. I don't want to make any boring, technical comparisons between the two protocols. Most of them are still regular users of ICQ despite its shortcomings.

Almost every person I know has an IM account.

What is a icq and jabber